CHILDHOOD AT THE SHORE

There’s a boy at the water’s edge,

laughing and splashing, wet sand

smeared on his face, chest, arms

having the time of his life, no doubt-

is what we always used to say.

I want to tell him to keep it up,

don’t stop jumping into the waves,

swim under the water, stay here,

never leave and soak it all in.

You’ll look back on this as a man,

as a father and husband- you will

need this when you have a bad day,

a particular challenge, or hardship.

You’ll think about the smell of salt air,

the breeze in your face, the coolness of

the rising tide on your ankles and shins,

your eyes darting across the ocean floor.

as you point at minnows, sand crabs, shells.

These memories will keep you afloat

is what I want to shout, because I think

someone should explain this to all of you.

But the children of the beach wouldn’t listen.

So instead I just grin and nod. And the boy?

He runs away. I turn to look to the horizon,

the Atlantic, nothing has really changed

it’s the same view from forty years ago,

only the children at the shoreline are new.

JUST IN CASE

In case you didn't know, it’s not easy to get started-

no one said it’d take until age forty to get on my feet.

In case of emergency, there were people I counted on.

But they’re all gone now and I can finally handle it all.

In case of failure, you've got to realize there’s always

a second chance, but there isn't always a third one.

In case you missed it, I often sit and think of the past,

sometimes I get upset missing the ones who are gone.

In case you hadn't noticed, I love to be at home,

at the end of the day there’s no place I’d rather be.

In case you are wondering, my future plans include

waking up to sunshine, a sandy beach and the waves.

In case people should ask, and they probably won’t

I’m doing alright after all those years of struggling.

ATLANTIS, MANSION BY THE SEA

Past a flower shaped swimming pool

with its unique jade green tile work

is a gate leading to a boardwalk path.

It takes you through stalks of sea oats

waving in the breeze above the dunes.

We look out over the Atlantic Ocean

where jagged bolts of lightning strike.

A display to rival any fireworks show.

For one week we’ll live in this place

with its vaulted ceilings, 20 foot walls

of plate glass facing out to the beach.

King size beds, Jacuzzis, flat screen TVs,

and a dining room table for fourteen.

A pool table, double headed showers,

multi-leveled decks, a modern kitchen,

artwork of sea creatures and lighthouses.

My wife is quiet, taking it all in until she

discovers the walk-in closet, brightly lit

with shelves, organizers, compartments,

two smooth opening bi-fold louver doors

and separate rods to hang all of our clothes.

Then she says what I’ve been thinking since

early in the day when we got to this place-

“How come we can’t live like this all the time?”

A WEEK ON THE OUTER BANKS

They run to the shoreline holding hands-

a man, a woman, and their two children.

Each one can’t wait to get their feet wet.

It’s the first day on the beach in Carolina.

They’ll stay out past dark with flashlights

as the ghost crabs scurry across the sand.

They’ll swim past midnight in illuminated

pools and drink too many ice cold Coronas.

They’ll get up early for coffee on the beach.

They’ll stare at the sunrise and hunt for shells.

They’ll get down on their knees to build fancy

sand castles with plastic buckets and shovels.

They’ll stare at the ocean, judge the waves,

strap colorful boogie boards to their wrists.

They’ll attempt to have a game of paddle ball.

They’ll throw cheese doodles to the seagulls.

By the third or fourth day, things will change,

less people get up early and less stay out late.

They’ll dress in white shirts and khaki shorts to

take family photos for their Christmas cards.

They’ll feel rich, blessed, and lucky to be here.

Some will start to think of the long ride home.

Some will say stupid things to each other, like-

“I wonder what the poor folks are doing today?”

STAR MAPS

It never seemed possible to me to locate

Orion, the North Star, or the Big Dipper.

It made no sense to me, how 5 shining dots

in the deepest regions of space some how

formed a woman pouring a pitcher of water

or how a cluster of 7 stars is called Hercules.

But tonight I’m sitting on the edge of the world,

or at least the edge of a continent, it’s a place

away from it all, where the “light pollution” is low.

I point my smartphone to the sky and try to learn

what I could never figure out from a textbook or

Mr. Wright, my eight grade Earth Science teacher.

And for a moment, I remember the commercial’s

clever catchall phrase, “There’s an app for that”.

ODE TO HIGHWAY 13

“Sometimes they ask him what he’s thinking about when he’s driving”

I know we’re going the right way when

in the middle of the night we cross the lit up

bridge, it’s a miniature version of the one in

Boston, strange masts, cables in the center.

Johnny Janosik Furniture and The Monster Mile

tell me I’m on vacation and on the right road.

Pickup trucks loaded down with watermelons,

vegetable stands with tomatoes and peaches.

Brick churches from another century are planted

on the highway alongside rows of crepe myrtles.

There’s Machipongo Seafood, plenty of Wawas,

and Mason Dixon for cheap cigarettes and hams.

Farmers on tractors, a different kind of traffic jam.

Rundown school buses filled with migrant workers

ready to work in Eastern Shore tomato packing sheds.

We’ll smell the chickens of Perdue and Mountainaire.

I’ll accelerate past eighteen wheeled bird cages with

feathers flying, lots of clucking, it’ll be their last ride.

I’ll laugh at the Dreamland Mobile Home Park sign and

know that my sleeping family wouldn’t find the same

irony in the big billboard or its slogan, A Touch of Class.

Speed traps in towns with Native American names-

Accomack, Pocomoke, Nassawadox and in counties

with fancy English names- Kent, Sussex, and Worcester.

We’ll see High school car washes, plenty of yard sales,

and a church group selling “authentic Carolina BBQ”.

There’ll be at least one accident, asleep at the wheel?

We’ll see roadside shrines to whole families who died.

Signs for beaches we’ve never been to before make us

wonder why not go to Rehoboth, Dewey, or Ocean City?

We drive on to the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel Bridge,

looking for the blue signs with the white seagull logo.

Fleets of mini vans with luggage racks, bikes, fishing rods

slide south from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

The Jersey Shore is just a memory now, a pile of snapshots.

Been cheating on her for years and they’ll never go back.

Tourists trade places each Saturday on Highway 13 as they

head in two different directions with two different moods.

Perhaps I just drove by a guy from Pittsburgh and his family

that stayed in the very same house that I’ll stay in with mine.

I’ll use the same bathroom, lay my head on the same pillows,

take the same photo of the sun rising above dunes and waves.

BIRDWATCHING ON THE OUTER BANKS

I enjoy watching you crows hop around
with your slick little bodies, shining feathers.
Black, iridescent like oil spots in a parking lot.
It seems you all like to work in groups as
you try to sneak up on the tourist’s garbage.
I want to ask you why you all have feathers
missing in a ring around your scrawny necks.

But it's the sandpipers who work the best
together on the shoreline, moving swiftly to
avoid getting your feet wet. Acting like you aren’t
part of a team, pecking, poking the wet sand
with precision, stopping to run each other off.
And then back to work, even though you don’t
find much at the water’s edge, it’s your spot.

Pelican, you stop me each morning at sunrise with a
rapid crash into the ocean, ugly as the beak you use.
You look bulky and strange, you don’t move sharp or
swift like the jets of today. More like World War Two
fighter planes with your direct paths and staggered
patterns that make me notice your numbers; I count
every time this week and the magic number is six.

Gulls, you are all over, screaming like someone’s
done something wrong or trying to murder you.
Somebody told me to look for you to find the wind’s
direction, since you always put your beak to where
it’s coming from. You don’t like ruffled feathers.
I keep an eye on you if I’m eating food because
I’ve seen your sneaky ways at the Jersey Shore.

Osprey, when you fly, there’s no need to count the
number in your flock, you don’t have any partners.
You go it alone, like your famous cousins, the Eagles.
Sometimes people call you seahawk when they
see you glide on currents of air above the waves.
The flight, the dive, the grab with your talons, barely
getting your feet wet. A few flaps and you are gone.

RETIREMENT PLANNING

“Today, many people beachcomb for beach treasures and
also because the activity offers them a natural prescription
to achieve better emotional, physical and spiritual health”.
- S. Deacon Ritterbush,
A Beachcomber's Odyssey, Vol. I: Treasures from a Collected Past

If I lived on this beach, I’d walk each day
on the shore line looking for certain kinds
of rocks, specific shells. I’d collect purple edged
clamshells, ones the Leni Lenape supposedly
used to make into belts of wampum, for money.

I’d place them into large half gallon Mason jars
and once filled to the top, a lid would seal them
like the garlic, hot peppers, pickled vegetables
at the A&S Pork Store we used to go to in Fords.
I’d display the jars in my living room on a long
thin shelf above a perfectly matched purple sofa.

In later weeks or months I would move on to find
black rocks, brown rocks, beach glass, conch shells,
whelks, scallops, oysters, and jack knife clams too.
I’d place them in their own jars, on their own shelves
like the way I remember seeing all the materials in
Edison’s Labs in West Orange when he was searching
for something too, something that would work for him.